Mick Philpott will stay in prison until he is at least 71 over blaze deaths of six of his children

- Shouts of 'die, Mick, die' as he is led to the cells

- Wife Mairead and accomplice Paul Mosley also guilty of six counts of manslaughter

- Eight security guards flanked trio as judge sentenced them

- Silence from Philpott and tears from wife as they were both jailed

Thursday 4 April 2013 10:11 BST

Jailed: Mick Philpott and wife Mairead

Mick Philpott was today jailed for life and will serve a minimum of 15 years for the “uniquely grave” killings of six of his children in a house fire.

Aged 56, he will be 71 before he can apply for release but will still have to convince a parole board that he is no longer a danger to the public. The father of 17 was condemned as “a driving force behind this shockingly dangerous enterprise” by Mrs Justice Thirlwall.

His wife Mairead was sentenced to 17 years and fellow accomplice Paul Mosley to 17 years. However, they will both only have to serve half of that term. All three were convicted of manslaughter on Tuesday.

Shouts of “die, Mick, die” came with cheers from the Nottingham crown court public gallery as Philpott was led to the cells. He responded with obscene gestures.

Mrs Justice Thirlwall told the defendants there was “no precedent” for the case, and added: “It is, in my judgment, a uniquely grave set of offences.” She said that the “wicked and dangerous plan” exposed Philpott as a man “with no moral compass”.

The plot to set fire to the house and rescue the children was “ outside the comprehension of any right-thinking person”, she said. The judge told Philpott he was “a disturbingly dangerous man. Your guiding principle is what Mick Philpott wants he gets”.

She condemned his “callous stupidity” and dismissed claims that he was “a good father”. “Your needs and desires took precedence over everything, everyone else, including your children. You so arranged your life and theirs so that everything was done for the pleasure of Michael Philpott,” she said.

Turning to Mairead, the judge admitted that she had “loved and cared for” the children. “I have already made clear that this was Michael Philpott’s plan. I accept that he treated you as a skivvy or a slave, and you were prepared to put up with that. As became clear during the trial you were prepared to go to any lengths, however humiliating, to keep him happy.”

The judge added that the children were subjected to a terrifying ordeal by Philpott. “Their terror was the price they were going to pay for your callous selfishness. In fact, they paid with their six young lives. Mercifully, the deaths were swift and, it would appear, without pain.” Mrs Justice Thirlwall told Philpott that women were his “chattels”. “You barked orders and they would obey. You were the kingpin, no one else mattered.”

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Philpott had used his shocking record of violence to terrify women in his many relationships, making threats based on his conviction for attempting to murder a girlfriend in 1978. “You have repeatedly used that conviction as a means of controlling other women, terrified as to what you would do to them,” said the judge.

Philpott, known locally in Derby as “Shameless Mick”, had plotted to set fire to the family home in Allenton to frame his former lover Lisa Willis.

In a cynical gamble he planned to save the children, blame Miss Willis and win back custody of five other children who had moved out with her. With his three-bedroom council house in ruins, he hoped that he would be given the bigger property he wanted. But he used too much petrol and with temperatures of 1,000F, he was unable to rescue the children.

Jade Philpott, 10, Duwayne, 13, John, nine, Jack, eight, Jesse, six, and Jayden, five, all died from smoke inhalation. Petrol was found on Philpott’s clothing, which he claimed was due to his habit of not washing for months on end.

Until early last year he had lived with Miss Willis, 29, and their combined 11 children in the cramped house. Fed up with his bullying she walked out with her children, taking £1,000-a-month benefits with her. Philpott, whose benefit scrounging of £60,000 a year had become notorious since his appearance on the Jeremy Kyle TV show in 2006, was furious and vowed revenge.

The fire was lit last May after Philpott, Mairead, 32, and Mosley, 46, had had a sordid sex session on their home snooker table. All three were originally accused of murder but the charge was downgraded to manslaughter on the basis that however criminally reckless they had been, they had not intended to kill the children.

The Philpotts were secretly recorded after the fire when he could be heard ordering his wife to “stick to your story” and also overheard admitting “it was not meant to end like this”. Before the trial Philpott wrote to friends from prison about his hopes of being acquitted with his wife and plans to celebrate by “raping” each other.

He described how he would visit the graves of the children they had killed and then get blind drunk before carrying out the violent sex attack. Police and social workers face questions after it emerged that Philpott had admitted attacking his wife two years before he set fire to his house.

He had received a police caution after slapping Mairead and dragging her outside the house by her hair in 2010. At the time of the fire he was on bail after a road rage attack. A serious case review into the actions of social workers, police, schools and health workers found that there were “no urgent recommendations” to be made after the six children’s deaths.

Philpott was well known to Derby city council because of his repeated complaints that he needed a bigger house for himself, his wife and, at that time, 11 children.

In 1978 he was sentenced to seven years after he stabbed former girlfriend Kim Hill 27 times and also slashed her mother Shirley 11 times. Miss Hill, now 51, suffered collapsed lungs and a punctured bladder, liver and kidneys.